TLDR;
- Your Google Ads are likely not the main problem. The real issue is the friction between your landing page and the actual trial signup.
- The "Request a Demo" button is probably killing your conversion rate. For a product-led business, it's an unnecessary, high-friction bottleneck that busy London decision-makers will avoid.
- The goal isn't to generate a "lead" for a salesperson; it's to get a user into your product as fast as possible. This means a no-card, instant-access free trial is the gold standard.
- You need to align your ad's promise with your landing page's offer. If your ad promises a solution, the landing page must provide an immediate path to experiencing that solution, not a form to talk about it later.
- This article includes an interactive LTV to CAC calculator to show you how much you can really afford to spend to acquire a customer, and a flowchart visualising the broken funnel vs. a successful one.
I see this problem all the time with tech and SaaS companies in London. You're spending a small fortune on Google Ads, the clicks are coming in from what look like the right search terms, and you might even be getting a decent number of "leads" filling out forms. But when you look at the numbers that really matter—actual trial signups and activated users—it's a ghost town. The pipeline is leaking like a sieve somewhere between the click and the product.
Most people's first instinct is to blame the ads. "We need to tweak the keywords," "Let's change the ad copy," "Maybe our bids are wrong." And while those things can always be optimised, they are rarely the root cause of this specific problem. The truth is, you've probably done the hard part: you've got a potentially interested person, someone actively searching for a solution in one of the most competitive markets in the world, to click your ad. The failure is happening after the click. The real culprit is almost always the bridge you've built (or failed to build) between their interest and your product: your offer and your landing page.
Is your "Request a Demo" button the most expensive CTA on your website?
Let's be brutally honest. For a SaaS or product-led company, the "Request a Demo" button is one of the most arrogant and conversion-killing calls to action ever invented. You've just paid Google anywhere from £5 to £50 for a click from a busy professional in London—a partner at a law firm in the City, a CTO at a Shoreditch startup—and your response is to ask them to stop what they're doing and book a meeting in a salesperson's calendar to be pitched to at a later date. It's madness.
This isn't a high-touch corporate sale for a six-figure custom integration. This is a product trial. The entire point is to let the product sell itself. By forcing them down a sales-led path, you introduce a massive amount of friction and delay:
- Time Delay: They have the problem now. They want to see the solution now. Making them wait 24-48 hours for a demo kills all momentum. In that time, they've already found three of your competitors who offer an instant free trial.
- Human Bottleneck: You've made a human being (your salesperson) a gatekeeper to your product. What if they're busy? What if the prospect doesn't want to talk to a salesperson? You've immediately created a barrier.
- Misaligned Intent: The user searched for a tool to solve their problem, not for a meeting. You're offering a meeting. It's a fundamental mismatch that creates distrust and annoyance.
You need to get out of the mindset of "generating leads" and into the mindset of "creating users." Your Google Ads campaign isn't meant to fill a sales pipeline with marketing qualified leads (MQLs); it's meant to drive product qualified leads (PQLs)—people who have actually used your product and seen its value firsthand. Many founders find their Google Ads leads are not converting for this very reason, the offer is simply wrong.
How to build a frictionless bridge from Ad to Trial
The solution is to ruthlessly eliminate every single step, every moment of friction, between the ad click and the user experiencing that "aha!" moment inside your product. Your landing page has one job and one job only: to make signing up for a trial seem like the most obvious, easy, and valuable thing they could possibly do in the next 60 seconds.
The Gold Standard: The No-Card, Instant-Access Trial
This should be your default. No credit card details. No 15-field forms. Just an email address, maybe a password, and a single click to get them into the product. That's it. Every extra field you add, every additional click you require, is another reason for them to abandon the process. If you are struggling to turn your Google Ads leads into trials, reducing this friction should be your number one priority.
Your Landing Page is a Vending Machine, Not a Brochure
The user puts in their "payment" (an email address), and your product comes out instantly. The design should reflect this.
-> A Single, Clear CTA: Your main button should say "Start Free Trial" or "Get Started for Free." Every other link or button is a distraction that can and should be removed.
-> Minimalist Form: Ask only for what you absolutely need to create an account. You can always ask for more information (company name, role, etc.) during the onboarding process *after* they've signed up.
-> Reinforce the Promise: Your headline should echo the solution they searched for on Google. If they searched for "project management software for agencies," your headline should be something like "The Project Management Tool That London Agencies Actually Love."
-> UK-Specific Social Proof: Show logos of recognisable UK or London-based companies that use your product. Display testimonials from local founders. This builds immediate trust and relevance. A generic testimonial from a US company doesn't have nearly the same impact. It's a common reason why so many Google Ads campaigns in London fail despite good traffic.
Think about the user journey. They're on the tube heading to a meeting in Canary Wharf, they search on their phone, click your ad. They don't have time to fill out a long form or wait for an email. They have 90 seconds to see if your solution looks legit. Can they sign up and get a feel for the product before their train arrives? If not, you've probably lost them.
The High-Friction Funnel (Where Trials Die)
The Frictionless Funnel (Where Users Are Born)
The Math That Sets You Free: Understanding LTV and CAC
Founders often resist offering a generous free trial because they're fixated on a low Cost Per Lead (CPL). They think, "If a demo lead costs me £50, a trial signup might cost me £70, and that's too expensive." This is thinking backwards. The real question isn't "How low can my CPL go?" but "How high a CPL can I afford to acquire a truly great customer?" The answer is found in your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).
Once you understand what a customer is actually worth to your business over their lifetime, you can make much smarter, more aggressive decisions about your acquisition strategy. Let's run the numbers for a hypothetical London-based B2B SaaS company.
- Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What you make per customer, per month. Let's say it's £200.
- Gross Margin %: Your profit margin on that revenue after accounting for costs of service (e.g., servers, support). Let's say it's 85%.
- Monthly Churn Rate: The percentage of customers you lose each month. Let's say it's 5%.
The calculation is simple:
LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate
LTV = (£200 * 0.85) / 0.05
LTV = £170 / 0.05 = £3,400
So, each customer is worth £3,400 in gross margin to your business. A healthy, sustainable business model often aims for a 3:1 LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio. This means you can afford to spend up to £1,133 (£3,400 / 3) to acquire a single customer.
Now, let's work backwards. If your free trial converts to a paid customer at a rate of 10%, you can afford to pay up to £113.30 for a single free trial signup (£1,133 * 10%). Suddenly that £70 Cost Per Trial doesn't look so expensive, does it? It looks like a profitable investment. This is the maths that unlocks scale. It's fundamental to building a solid conversion-focused strategy for Google Ads in the UK.
Use the calculator below to plug in your own numbers and see what you can truly afford to spend.
Your Action Plan: A Step-by-Step Guide to Fixing the Leak
Knowing the theory is one thing, but putting it into practice is another. If your Google Ads leads aren't converting to trials, it can feel overwhelming. Many businesses get stuck at this stage, which is why we've put together a comprehensive playbook for troubleshooting underperforming campaigns. But for now, here is a simplified action plan to get you started today.
The goal is to diagnose and fix the specific part of your funnel that is broken. It requires a methodical approach, not random changes.
Step 1: Audit Your Post-Click Journey
Go through the process yourself. Open an incognito window, search for one of your main keywords on Google, click your ad, and try to sign up. Time it. Count the number of clicks. Count the number of form fields. Be brutally honest with yourself: is this process easy and inviting, or is it a chore? If it feels like work to you, imagine how it feels to a potential customer who isn't nearly as invested.
Step 2: Declare War on Friction
Based on your audit, create a list of every single point of friction.
-> Is the "Request a Demo" button your primary CTA? Change it to "Start Free Trial."
-> Are you asking for more than an email and password? Cut the form down to the bare minimum.
-> Does the page take more than 3 seconds to load? Optimise your images and scripts. Page speed is a conversion killer.
-> Is your headline generic? Rewrite it to directly address the search term that brought the user to the page.
This is where a deep dive into advanced landing page optimisation can make a monumental difference. Even small tweaks, like changing a headline or removing one form field, can lead to significant uplifts in trial signups.
Step 3: Implement Conversion Tracking Properly
This might sound basic, but you'd be amazed how many accounts I see where the tracking is a mess. You need to be tracking the final, most important action as your primary conversion goal in Google Ads. That isn't a "lead" form submission. It's the "trial_started" or "signup_complete" event that fires *after* they've successfully created an account. When you tell Google's algorithm to optimise for trial signups, it will get much, much better at finding people who are likely to actually sign up for a trial, not just fill out a form.
Step 4: A/B Test Your Offer, Not Just Your Ad Copy
Once you have a baseline, you can start testing. But don't just test button colours. Test the core offer.
-> Test a 14-day trial vs. a 30-day trial.
-> Test a full-featured trial vs. a feature-limited trial.
-> Test the wording on your CTA button: "Start Free Trial" vs. "Create Your Account" vs. "Get Instant Access".
This methodical testing process is the key to unlocking growth for B2B lead generation in London. The market is too competitive to rely on guesswork; you need data to guide your decisions.
I've summarised the main action points for you in the table below. This is the framework we use to turn leaking funnels into high-performance user acquisition engines.
| Problem Area | Immediate Action to Take | Why It Works |
|---|---|---|
| The Offer | Replace "Request a Demo" with an instant "Start Free Trial" (no credit card). | Aligns with user intent (they want a solution, not a meeting) and removes the biggest point of friction and delay. |
| The Landing Page | Cut your signup form down to email/password only. Make the "Start Trial" button the only clickable action above the fold. | Maximises the conversion rate by making the desired action incredibly simple and obvious. Every extra field is a reason to leave. |
| Ad "Scent" & Messaging | Ensure your landing page headline and core message perfectly match the promise made in your Google Ad. | Maintains momentum and trust. A disconnect between the ad and the page feels like a bait-and-switch, causing high bounce rates. |
| Measurement & Optimisation | Change your primary conversion goal in Google Ads from "lead form submit" to "trial signup complete". | Feeds the algorithm the right signal. You're telling it to find people who complete trials, not just people who fill out forms. |
| Trust & Relevance | Add logos of well-known UK/London clients and testimonials from local users to your landing page. | Builds instant credibility and shows that your solution is a proven fit for their specific market, which is a constant concern for UK buyers. |
Fixing the gap between leads and trials is rarely about finding a magic bullet keyword. It's about a fundamental shift in strategy: from generating interest to enabling experience. It requires a deep, honest look at the journey you're forcing your potential customers to take and a ruthless commitment to making that journey as short, simple, and valuable as possible.
This process can be complex, and it's easy to get lost in the data. Sometimes, having an expert pair of eyes can help you spot the blockages you're too close to see. If you've implemented these changes and are still struggling, or if you'd like a professional audit of your entire ad-to-trial funnel, we offer a completely free, no-obligation strategy session where we can dig into your specific challenges.
